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The Walking Dead Series Finale Will Indeed Deviate From The Comics

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Though AMC considers its marquee series to be evergreen in the sense that it could take a leaf out of Star Trek‘s book and remain a fixture of the TV landscape for years to come, The Walking Dead founding father Robert Kirkman has nevertheless touched base on that abstract finish line.

As the series mastermind has teased in the past, Kirkman currently has an idea of how to succinctly conclude The Walking Dead‘s comic book run and though he continues to be tight-lipped on specifics, the writer-producer did reveal that if and when AMC decide to close the book, the series finale will be different to the comic book on which it is based.

Word comes by way of the Geeking Out show (via CBM), where Kirkman stressed that even if he is called upon by showrunner Scott Gimple, he plans to consciously map out an ending that is markedly different to the comics.

“I hope [when] the show ends, the comic keeps going. The comic was the comic before the show, so I try to maintain that. I know how I’m going to end The Walking Dead [comic], so I can’t tell anyone, because I don’t want it in the show before I get it in my comic! So if the show were to end at any point and the comic was still going, I would have to sit down with [showrunner] Scott [Gimple] and pretend I had no idea how to end it and work with him and try and come up with a new ending.”

On the topic of adaptations blazing a path independent from their source material, things got a little heated over the summer when Robert Kirkman criticized George R.R. Martin’s handling of The Winds of Winter. As the penultimate chapter in A Song of Ice and Fire, anticipation for the novel continues to be feverish, even though HBO’s flagship series will blaze past Martin’s lore with the premiere of season 7 next year. At the time, Kirkman had expressed his disappointment, but has now stated: “I was just joking about how I would have handled that situation. Love GOT, love GRRM.”

The Walking Dead season 7 will make its long-anticipated bow on October 23.